


Beauty In the Breakdown

by PuckishElf



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kind Strangers, Therapy cat, being alive is hard, curvo is stubborn and dumb but trying his best, curvo talks to animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:06:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuckishElf/pseuds/PuckishElf
Summary: Mandos has decreed that Curufin's time in the Halls has ended, and to finish healing, he must be alive.  But how can Curvo heal, when he barely remembers how to live?
Relationships: Curufin | Curufinwë & Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Curufin | Curufinwë & Gimli (Son of Glóin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Beauty In the Breakdown

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title of the fic is taken from Frou Frou’s song “Let Go.” I don’t know how many of you remember the early 2000’s after this song came out, when every other hurt/comfort fic had this same title, but I regret nothing, and it’s the only thing that seemed to fit. The song randomly came on when I was writing the first chapter, and I immediately put it on repeat. And, because I am notoriously bad at and lazy with titles, three of the later chapter titles are also taken from lyrics to this song.
> 
> I have to give acknowledgement where it’s due: Normally, I roleplay Curvo on Discord with a handful of my friends. I don’t usually play as Ambarussa, Finrod, or Legolas--those characters are always piloted by silentsnowdrop, and their appearances here are based off of their interpretations of them. Similarly, the portrayal of Celegorm I’m using here is roleplayed by my friend Yuni, who is the first person I’ve heard of to headcanon him as autistic. (He’s a precious bean and I love him.) The idea of Celegorm and Curufin being “soul-twins,” or fëanona, was also conceived by Yuni.

It was time. Time to leave, he had said. It had been many thousands of years--Curvo had not thought to ask how many--and Mandos was saying that it was time for him to live again. He had healed so much, but the next stage of his healing needed to take place somewhere else. So Curvo was given some time to think over what he was going to do, where he was going to go. He didn't think forward at all. He spent all his remaining time in the Halls saying goodbye.

His father was staying. His dear, dear father; his wild, fey father; his father who had wept when Curufin first came to the Halls, his spirit blackened and shriveled by sin and pain. Curvo had thought, then, that weren't spirits not supposed to have faces, or tears? But his father had ever been one to throw improbability to the winds, and achieve the impossible.

Curvo didn't want to leave him. He hoped Fëanor would follow him to life, but he doubted it. His father wouldn't leave the Halls yet. If at all. The thought gnawed at him, but it was hard to focus. He just needed to be with him. Stay with him, for as long as he could.

Before he knew it, he was alive. He had a _body_ again, and the sun was too bright, and the air too warm, and the breeze too cool, and one sensation smudged into the next, and he couldn't tell up from down. Soft voices told him it was alright to rest for a time, to get his bearings. He could see a canopy of trees above him, swaying gently, scattering the blurry light.

He was told it was customary for one of the handmaidens of Vairë to give a gift of clothes, so that the newly-reborn soul wouldn't be stuck wandering the world in naught but their skin. Curvo had requested black, instead of the customary white. He struggled to say why. It was not unheard-of, they said. It was fine. The first vision he saw clearly with new-formed eyes was the bright white hair of his grandmother, Miriel. The moment she put the robes into his hands, he burst into tears, and flung himself into her arms. She held him, and he wept, and lost track of time again. Spending time with her in the Halls had been so precious; he knew that once he returned to life, he would never see her again. But he had to leave. He had to live. It was the only way he could heal now, they said.

They advised him to take some time to get used to life. To get used to seeing, to hearing, to walking. It was easiest to do that in the gardens of Lorien, they said. So he did. He vaguely remembered this place, from when he was young. His father had taken him and his brothers on so many trips across Aman, exploring every nook and cranny of it. And the Valar had been happy to share their sacred places with the curious. Now, the gardens were full of the newly-returned, the broken, the sorrowful, seeking healing. He supposed he was all of those, and more. He tried not to stare at them; some people needed privacy. _He_ did. But he needed to look, too. At _people_. Trees and streams and flowers were all well and fine, but he needed to see faces. He wasn't sure he could recall his own.

Eventually his eyesight returned with clarity. His senses slid back into focus. His sense of self aligned with his new body. He found himself scowling at his hands. They lacked callouses. That wasn't right. He needed to be back in the forge; he needed to work again, to strengthen up these baby-soft hands. Weak. He wasn't weak though, he noticed as he wandered. His limbs still had their old strength--most of it, anyway. Or all of it? Yes, all of it--but it was somewhat in the wrong places. He recognized the muscles he had used for fighting, and the muscles he had used for forging. He only needed to strengthen the forging muscles. He wondered if he should promise it to himself that he would--but the idea of making a promise at all soured his stomach.

His stomach was never empty. Valinor was lush, fertile, and fruitful, her soil and waters pure. He found ample berries and hanging fruits, the occasional mushrooms, and tubers hiding here and there. He knew which mushrooms were good to eat and which were deadly; he knew where to dig for tubers and where to move on. He remembered how to make a fire, how to search for drinkable water, how to snare and skin and roast a rabbit. Celegorm had taught it all to him, long ago.

As soon as his head was clearer, he left the Gardens of Lorien, and lived easily off of the land. There was a road leading eastward, from the gardens through the Calacirya, towards Tirion. He didn't travel on it, but kept in in sight as he traveled towards the city. He had good reasons for it--for one, he had no shoes. He didn't expect that the road would hurt his feet, but the grass was so much more pleasant to walk on. There were other travelers on the road, too--only a few, but enough. He didn't want to be seen. He still remembered with a bitter sting that he looked exactly like Fëanor, who many in Valinor would still know by sight--so whenever he heard movement on the road, he pulled the hood of his black robes over his head and down low, covering his eyes. No one on the road hailed him or seemed to pay him any mind. He appreciated their politeness in leaving him alone.

No, that wasn't right, he mused as he listened to a pair of feet move up the road to the west. Not _exactly_ like Fëanor. He was more than a head shorter than his father, for one thing. Their faces, in structure alone, were as alike as twins, but they each wore them differently. Fëanor had been _animated_ , every single emotion alive on his face, not a single thing held back, and his eyes blazed brilliantly with his inner fire. Curufin had held his face in the opposite way--utterly reserved. The grey of his eyes had been doors of iron, and the tight lines of his perpetual scowl were the keys. All emotion was shut behind them.

His face was different now, he noticed whenever he found a stream to wash in. His eyes still called iron to mind, but the gates were open, and the keys nowhere in sight. Honestly, he looked as bewildered as he felt. He could accept that, for now. His mind was clear and all his memories were in place, but being alive was still a little overwhelming. He suspected that feeling would linger for a while.

The days passed swiftly, as they always did when uneventful. He found himself enjoying his time wandering thus through the quiet sunlit lands west of the Pelori. How strange, to see Valinor under the Sun and Moon! To see these grassy meadows under _starlight_. He found himself delighting in such things, as he never remembered doing in his first life. He wondered if that meant he was healing.

Until one day, just after sunrise, he saw it: Tirion, the white city upon the hill of Túna, cradled in the arms of the mountains. He stopped at a berry bush just beside the road to watch the sun rise, and _oh_...! How the city of his birth shone in splendor! He realized after some time that there were tears on his face. Several travelers passed him by with no word. Finally, when the Sun had climbed to her midday zenith, he pulled the hood back over his head and headed down into the city.

Curufin knew what he needed to find. He _could_ have lived off the land forever, really--it wasn't so bad. Quite relaxing, even. But he needed a forge. He needed to do, to discover, to _create_ ; he was a smith, not just in body, but in the uttermost depths of his soul. And this new life he'd been given--given beyond hope, in fact, considering what Mandos had prophesied after Alqualonde--would never be complete until he exercised that fulfillment of his being. Except that finding a forge to work at presented problems. _Several_ problems.

The first was that his old forge was at the house where he grew up, which he had heard referred to as Nerdanel's house. Which made sense. His mother had lived there for so long alone, no one could rightly call it Fëanor's anymore. There were forges at the old Palace in Tirion too, where his grandfather had once dwelled, and where his uncle Arafinwë now ruled. But living with Finarfin and living with Nerdanel presented the same problem: neither of them deserved to have to put up with him. Doubtless they knew of all the terrible things he had done. Doubtless, every single one of those terrible things would be a burden on them. _Curvo_ would be a burden on them, living in their homes. He certainly had been a burden on Maedhros and Maglor, after he and Celegorm came to live at Himring, after the disaster with Lúthien.

He remembered the Elves of Himring hissing at him as he passed through Himring's halls. Some of them did more than hiss. Some threw stones. And he hadn't cared. He'd punched one that threw a stone, and he hadn't cared. Maglor had punched _him_ for that, and he hadn't cared. He honestly, truly, and completely genuinely did _not_ care, then. And now, standing in sight of Tirion under the Sun, that thought disturbed him. He was sure he was _supposed_ to care. He had been dead inside, long before he died. He wondered if it started when he lost his father, or when he lost his wife, or when his son renounced him. Losing Celebrimbor had certainly killed off any feeling he'd had _left_.

But he cared now. He cared if people in Tirion hissed. He cared if they threw stones. Not because he was scared of his skin breaking, of bleeding--he remembered death so vividly that fear of injury held no sway over him. No; he was scared of the same kind of pain that had welled up through his very being as he said goodbye to his father in the Halls. He feared the kind of pain that had him crying in Miriel's arms. He would not risk that. Moreover, he would not risk putting his mother or uncle through that. He knew they would go through the trouble to chase off offenders. They were _good_ people, and even if they did it with loathing and bitterness in their hearts, they would shelter him, provide for him, and protect him. But he couldn't let them suffer that. He'd already made them both suffer enough.

And so Curufin, son of Fëanor, former Lord of Himlad, who had betrayed his cousin Finrod to his death, who had imprisoned Lúthien and tried to kill her, who had ultimately landed the killing blow on her son Dior the Beautiful, stood just inside the great western gates of Tirion upon Túna, and had no idea what to do. Robed and hooded in black, with his straight black hair streaming unbraided from beneath the hood, pale hands clutching the front of the robes tightly, no shoes on his feet, he was the very picture of the lost and dispossessed.

But he didn't have time to be lost, or bewildered. He needed a forge. He'd just have to make his own way, somehow. Curvo headed up the street at a brisk walk, keeping his hood low. He had no idea what he was looking for; all he could do was hope he would know it when he found it.


End file.
